By the time Manny Scott was 11 years old, he had found himself in a dark place.

One night, when he and his friend “Big Richard” had been drunk and high, they decided that Big Richard should give Scott a tattoo on his left thigh.

“It was supposed to be like a three-dimensional cross,” Scott said. “But we didn’t go to church or anything. I don’t know why, we just got a cross, and it’s supposed to be my initials, but there are some drunk arrows.”

Throughout grade school, he was teased, often asked why he “got a Chinese star on his leg. It is the ugliest tattoo you will ever see,” Scott said.

But now, the tattoo holds a purpose.

“It’s a reminder for me about just that time of my life,” Scott said. “My kids look at it like they don’t understand. That tattoo reminds of just how lost I was.”